


Douse the Fire, Help Me Breathe

by Arej



Series: Ineffable Advent 2019 [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (i think it qualifies?), 31 Days of Ineffables, Angst, Crowley Has PTSD (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other, and probably a lifelong struggle with pyrophobia ahead of him, they're not really male but it's m/m since i used male pronouns throughout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:00:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21687979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arej/pseuds/Arej
Summary: Day 5 of the fantastic advent calendar of prompts.Even demons fear fire, when they've watched their world burn.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Ineffable Advent 2019 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1561027
Comments: 37
Kudos: 261





	Douse the Fire, Help Me Breathe

The first time Aziraphale lights a fire in the bookshop hearth post-Armageddon’t, Crowley panics.

It’s the quiet sort of panic. A serpentine slither down his spine, the subtle squeeze of coils around his lungs. Slow, steady, sneaky; it spreads through his limbs like venom. He doesn’t even realize it’s there, at first.

But he can’t take his eyes off the fire.

There’s nothing of despair, here; no roaring inferno, no splintering glass, no creaks and groans as ancient timbers give way to ravaging flame. No dust-smoke, no book ash. No melting, warped gramophone record paying a funeral dirge for a ruined world, a lost future. The horrors echo in his memory, flash at the edges of his vision, but the room is unchanged: no debris haze, no broken pleas, no shattered heart. Just the warm crackle of logs in the grate and a soft glow, painting the room in shades of amber and gold.

There is ice in his spine, trickling down his throat. Pooling in the frigid chasm of his gut.

“- not to your liking? I know you prefer the whites, dear; shall I open a bottle? I believe there’s still a case of Chateau d’Yquem left.”

“Hmm? No, ’s fine, angel.” Crowley knocks back half the glass he hadn’t even noticed holding, absentminded and laser-focused on the fireplace. “’S perfect.”

It _is_ perfect, and far too good a vintage for such indecorous treatment. Doubtless Aziraphale is commenting something to that effect; he catches the rise and fall of the angel’s voice, but the words don’t register. He’s too focused on the fireplace.

Every pop and crackle of the logs winds his spine tighter, chills the blood in his veins. Excellent wine sits sour on a stomach churning with distress. The shifting firelight is playing tricks on his eyes; his gaze flits anxiously from one side of the fireplace to the other, constantly confirming that the blaze hasn’t breached containment. That it isn’t creeping around the edges, consuming everything in sight, licking at the walls and laying waste to his angel’s home, his life.

He won’t let that happen. Not again. Not ever.

“- really, my dear, are you quite alright? You seem terribly distracted.”

Crowley tries, truly tries, to face Aziraphale, to ease the worry he can hear curling through the angel’s voice. He manages to turn his head -

\- but his eyes are glued to the fireplace.

“’M fine, angel. I -”

A flash at the edge of his vision, and Crowley jerks to look, but it’s only a reflection of flame dancing along a cut-glass decanter. The fire’s grown high enough now to start catching on polished surfaces; it glints from the corners of the room. The breath leaves his lungs on a low, pained exhale.

He hadn’t realized he’d been holding it.

Aziraphale shifts beside him, testy, and Crowley feels the once more forgotten wineglass plucked from his tense fingers. 

“There is _something_ the matter, Crowley, stop pretending. You’ve barely spoken, won’t even look at me -”

Belatedly, Crowley remembers his glasses, discarded on the table. They, too, are reflecting the firelight - the traitors.

“- all you’ve done is stare at the blasted fireplace, so let’s out with it. What have I done? Why won’t you look at me?”

He can feel Aziraphale tensing for a fight, angelic indignation rustling like feathers in a nonexistent breeze. It sounds, for one sickening moment, like the pages of an old book, crumbling to ash.

Something terrible squeezes in Crowley’s chest.

“It’s not you,” he manages, barely. The fire reflects back at him from the decanter, his glasses, the display case in which Aziraphale keeps his snuffboxes; they’re surrounded, and Crowley is struggling to keep an eye on the fire and all its mocking echoes, confirm its containment. “You haven’t done anything.”

“Well what else could it possibly be, that you won’t look away from -” a sharp inhale, a beat. A sudden deflation as the fight drains from Aziraphale, indignant air sucked from him as if by greedy, ravaging flame. “Oh, Crowley.”

“It’s fine. It’s - it’s fine. Just. ’S fine.”

“Darling, it’s - you’re not fine.”

Aziraphale’s hand lands on Crowley’s knee. He’d tense, if there were any tension left to attain; he’s wound tighter than a spring, a snake on the cusp of striking, every muscle and tendon in his lean body singing with strain. He’s poised, ready; the moment, the _second_ a lick of fire breaches the confines of the hearth, he’ll be there. He’ll stop it.

He has to. He can’t let his whole world go up in flames again.

But the angel is a live wire beside him, tension spreading from Crowley’s knee and up, into his hand, his arm. He can feel the way Aziraphale’s shoulders are stiffening, even from the other side of the sofa. The air between them is going still and staticky, and Crowley can’t have that, can’t bear it. Not now.

“I -” he begins, just as Aziraphale speaks.

“You watched the shop burn.”

Crowley laughs, a helpless, harsh, broken thing. Feels the wine churn like acid in his stomach. 

“Had a front row seat, didn’t I?”

“You -” The hand on Crowley’s knee tightens, grips. “You were inside…?”

“Came in for you,” he admits. The room is awash in reds and golds, fire and the reflection of flame. Memories flash at the edges of his vision. It’s getting harder to breathe; the tension is squeezing his lungs to paste, and the air in his mouth tastes like ashes. “Where’d you think I found the book?”

“I hadn’t - I didn’t. _Crowley._ ”

The angel’s voice is broken, watery. His fingers tremble on Crowley’s knee, so Crowley covers them with his own brittle fingers, steady but frozen, despite the wash of warmth from the hearth. Fingers like icicles, full of creeping dread and tightly leashed terror.

Or maybe that’s just his heart.

“It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” Aziraphale counters. His hand flips, curls upward; the other presses down, and he traps Crowley’s frigid hand between his own, soft and warm. “It isn’t. I’ll get rid of -”

“No, I’ll -” Crowley grabs Aziraphale’s lifting hand, holds it. “It’ll be fine. I just - just need to make sure -”

“But Crowley -”

“- keep an eye on it, I’ll get over -”

“Crowley, _no_.” Aziraphale rips his hand free, snaps, and the fire in the hearth is gone - miracled away, flame and logs and ash and all, the grate as clean as the day it had been installed.

Crowley stares at it, searching, just to be sure. Just in case. If even one spark had escaped, if it comes back -

Aziraphale’s hands are on his face now, tugging gently; Crowley goes, turns into the gesture, although his eyes linger on the fireplace. The angel, thankfully, doesn’t push.

Thick thumbs spread moisture across his cheeks. Had - had he been crying…?

“- never have a fire again, I promise -”

“Angel, no, just -”

“Absolutely not, not - after what you saw, Crowley, after what you _did_ , how could I -”

“- take some time, I promise I’ll get over -”

“You don’t have to -”

“I need to,” Crowley argues. “I have to. I won’t - it won’t always be like this. Just. Just surprised me, is all. I thought -”

“Oh, darling. Crowley. I’m so sorry. And we can - if you want. If you need to work on it, to work through it, we can, and I’ll be here to help, I will, but not - not tonight. Please, darling, I can’t bear it. Not tonight.”

The hearth is cold, dark, barren; the icy terror in Crowley’s veins is thawing, the tension melting, releasing his limbs to tremble and shake. Nothing glints. Nothing flickers. There are no fires, and no reflections, no echoes, no visions. He finally, finally, drags his gaze from the empty fireplace, inch by agonizing inch; turns to meet the angel’s wet eyes with his own.

“I thought,” he manages, and closes his eyes against the hot spill of tears. Leans his face into the warm cradle of angelic hands, his torso, his whole body too, until he’s pressed against Aziraphale, tucked into the angel’s plush curves, face buried in the crook of his neck. He sobs, great wracking things, his whole body shaking with them. Slowly thawing fingers clutch desperately in the familiar waistcoat he’d once thought gone for good, at the soft flesh beneath he’d feared gone forever. He digs his hands in, his face, presses the angles of himself into the roundness of his angel, buries himself there, and weeps.

“I thought I lost you,” he whispers, and shakes apart.

And Aziraphale holds him, tugs him in close, until it’s impossible to tell where angel ends and demon begins. Smooths shaking hands over a shaking back and whispers broken-voiced assurances into hair that gleams - the only flame in the safety of a dark shop. 

“I’m never leaving you, I promise. Oh, my darling, my dearest. My love. Crowley. I’m never leaving you again.”


End file.
